BERLIN (AP) — The European Space Agency on Thursday published the first image taken from the surface of a comet, and said that its Philae lander is still "stable" despite a failure to latch on properly to the rocky terrain.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. health official says long-anticipated clinical trials of a possible Ebola vaccine will start soon in West Africa, as the global response to the outbreak took on added urgency with new cases in Mali and reports that the death toll has surpassed 5,000.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leaders pledged for the first time to cap the country's decades-long growth of greenhouse gas emissions. Since China emits more carbon and other heat-trapping gases than any other country, the pledge boosted global efforts to prevent catastrophic climate change. Fulfilling its pledge, however, will require China to transform a booming economy that still largely depends on polluting industries such as steel production and manufacturing. Yet the country has important advantages, having already developed enormous capacities for solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A political gambit by an endangered Senate Democrat broke loose long-stalled legislation to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline as the lame-duck Congress returned to a Capitol where results of last week's GOP blowout are still sinking in.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine says the security situation in rebel-held areas in the east has steadily worsened as separatist fighters move closer to demarcation lines separating them from government forces.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The doctor who conducted sterilization procedures after which 13 women died in central India was arrested, but insisted he didn't do anything wrong — even though he said he used to perform up to 10 times more surgeries a day than allowed.

DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) — Hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, a European spacecraft made history Wednesday by successfully landing on the icy, dusty surface of a speeding comet — an audacious cosmic first designed to answer big questions about the origin of the universe.